Pod Insights Criminology Lucille Johnson About this episode In 1991, Lucille Johnson, a friendly mother and grandmother was bludgeoned and strangled to death inside her home. It's a case that would become referred to by some as the 'Lego' murder because of a curious clue found at the crime scene. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the murder of Lucille Johnson. For years, her case puzzled investigators and had her community concerned over her unsolved murder until finally, fingerprints and DNA helped pinpoint Lucille's killer. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production
Transcript 0:02 Speaker 00 If you're fascinated by the darker sides of humanity, join us every week on our podcast Serial Killers, where we go deep into notorious true crime cases. With significant research and careful analysis, we examine the psyche of a killer, their motives and targets, and law enforcement's pursuit to stop their spree. Follow Serial Killers wherever you get your podcasts and get new episodes every Monday.
0:34 Speaker 01 Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.
1:11 Speaker 02 Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 351 of the Criminology Podcast. This is Mike Ferguson.
1:18 Speaker 03 And this is Mike Morford.
1:19 Speaker 02 Morf, how you doing this week, buddy?
1:21 Speaker 03 I'm doing good. Stay a little bit busy, working, enjoying the weather a little bit. What are you doing?
1:26 Speaker 02 Well, I am getting ready for this March Madness. You know, that's one of my favorite times of the year. I love college basketball, but I especially love the tournament. There's just something about the tournament with all this, you know, Cinderella teams, the upsets. I just love every part of it.
1:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, I've never gotten into basketball. I'm a big football fan now, so the draft is coming up. I'm excited about that. Always looking forward to that.
1:55 Speaker 02 Well, in baseball, starting, there's a lot of sports going on. Basketball's still going on. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Ags and Don Murphy. So some great new support. We really appreciate it.
2:08 Speaker 03 Yeah, thank you so much for that support. It really helps us out. For anyone else that'd like to support the show, head on over to patreon.com/criminology to get started.
2:17 Speaker 02 And I have been watching a lot of true crime docs lately. I don't know if you've seen this one, Morph, but I've been watching this one about Karen Reed on HBO Max. Have you seen it?
2:27 Speaker 03 I haven't seen that one yet. That's one that is on my list, though.
2:30 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's pretty good. You know, her boyfriend was a Boston police officer, died mysteriously and she goes on trial. They had a lot of good access. And then after I finished, I guess what is the first season or whatever, it said Paradise Lost. And I hadn't seen Paradise Lost in years. So I watched it. And I was like, man, I forgot how good that series was, you know, starting in the, what, middle 90s? It really kind of is the, you know, one of the first true crime docs and they had such amazing access.
3:10 Speaker 02 And I really hearken back to that as kind of a kickoff for me as far as true crime documentaries.
3:17 Speaker 03 I know a lot of people are interested in that case and talk about it online. So yeah, definitely worth watching and seeing what they've got to offer.
3:25 Speaker 02 All right, it's time to jump into our case for this week. And we're discussing the February 1991 Utah murder of Lucille Johnson, a friendly mother and grandmother. She was bludgeoned and strangled to death inside her home in a case that would become referred to by some as the Lego murder, for reasons which we'll discuss. For years, her case puzzled investigators and had her community concerned over her unsolved murder until finally fingerprints and DNA helped pinpoint Lucille's killer.
4:01 Speaker 03 By 1991, Lucille Johnson was certainly getting up there in age, but she wasn't slowing down. At 78 years old, she still had a very active social life. She was president of Southern Utah Broadcasting and the Real Estate Group Investment Center, and she was the Relief Society Secretary in her ward. Recently widowed, Lucille lived alone in the home she once shared with her husband in the town of Holiday, Utah, just outside of Salt Lake City. Holiday has about 30,000 residents and a crime rate that's lower than the national average. According to NeighborhoodScout.com, your chances of being the victim of a violent crime in
4:39 Speaker 03 Holiday is about 1 in 583, compared to 1 in 431 for the state of Utah as a whole. Lucille and her late husband Howard got married in 1933. Both devout members of the church, they had their wedding at the LDS temple in Salt Lake City. The two were married for 56 years and had five children together. Howard passed away at the age of 78 in August 1989, and after he passed, Lucille tried to stay active in the community.
5:08 Speaker 02 On Friday, February 1st, 1991, Lucille went about her day, as she usually did. She stopped by the hospital to visit one of her neighbors who had been admitted following an illness and then dropped off a meal for a different neighbor who was also sick. Lucille has been described as kind, loving, and compassionate, and it's evident what kind of person she was. Based on all of this, Lucille wasn't going to let someone be lonely when they were in the hospital, and she wasn't going to let a sick neighbor go hungry. Though she was 78 and no one would have blamed her for sitting back and letting others take care of her, she was happier being the person that spent her day helping others.
5:52 Speaker 02 And so I think, you know, more if we're really getting a picture here of Lucille, and she's kind of a, an amazing person, you know, married 56 years. That in itself is awesome. Unfortunately, her husband passes away, but she's not just sitting in her house, watching TV. I mean, she is out. She's a member of a number of different organizations. There's no doubt she went out of her way to help people and really got some gratification from that.
6:31 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think most listeners probably know somebody like this. You know, when I was a kid, my grandmother and a few of her friends were always active doing fundraising for this or that and sponsoring things and baking cakes to raise money for things and just always busy. And, you know, looking back, because I'm the age my grandmother was back then, I'm zapped for energy just doing podcasts here. So for them to be going out and about and, and doing all that they were doing, and all the things that Lucille was doing, you know, you gotta give them credit for, for being on the go and doing all that stuff.
7:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, and it's the fact that they're not doing it for themselves, right? They're doing it for other people, and that really is amazing.
7:17 Speaker 03 Lucille had been having some car trouble recently. So she decided to have her car looked at instead of driving it back home. At the dealership, she learned it would take quite some time for the inspection. So one of the employees offered to drive her to her house so she could wait at home for her car to be looked at. Later in the afternoon, a neighbor saw her sweeping her front porch. At some point after going back inside, Lucille stopped answering calls coming into her home phone. Lucille failing to answer the phone was a little bit worrisome due to her age. With how much she was involved in and how active she was in the church and the community, it wouldn't be too unusual for her to be busy or not home. Because of Lucille's busy schedule, there was no alarm sounded when people didn't hear from her right away,
8:01 Speaker 03 and no wellness checks were done.
8:03 Speaker 02 On the next day, Saturday, February 2nd, Lucille's daughter Shirley went to check on Lucille. She had actually thought about checking on her the previous evening, but for some reason decided against it. When there was still no word from her by the next morning, Shirley knew she needed to go see her mom in person. In Shirley's mind, at the very least, her mom's phone wasn't working and they would need to figure that out. In one of the worst-case scenarios she thought of, her mom was lying on the floor helpless, unable to get up like the people in a Life Alert commercial and needed help. Sadly, what Shirley would find would be even worse than she could have imagined.
8:45 Speaker 03 When Shirley got to the home, the storm door was open, which is extremely unusual because Lucille was known to keep her exterior doors shut and locked. As Shirley entered the house, she found Lucille's body in the hallway. There was visible blood spatter next to her mom's head, which was still underneath a pillow that had been placed on top of her head. She was lying on her back, so the pillow was covering her face. Although Shirley couldn't see her mom's face, she knew that she was dead. She raced over to the phone to call police, knowing that what she had found wasn't the result of a medical emergency, but rather a murder.
9:20 Speaker 02 Police and detectives arrived quickly at Lucille's home located at 4284 South Holloway Drive. It was immediately clear to investigators that Lucille's murder had been a brutal one and was incredibly violent. It seemed as if Lucille's killer didn't attack her out of necessity. The 78-year-old frail Lucille hadn't mounted some kind of fight for her life that led her killer to attack her even harder and faster. Yet Lucille had suffered several injuries and more than one of those injuries would have been fatal on their own. An autopsy would reveal that Lucille's skull had been fractured from multiple blows to the head from an unknown blunt object.
10:05 Speaker 02 Her sternum was broken and every single one of her ribs had been fractured. A boot print found on her chest indicated that her killer had literally stomped on her body. She had also been strangled, which along with the blunt force trauma, was listed as the official cause of her death. When it was over, the killer laid a pillow over Lucille's face. Likely done so that he or she wouldn't need to see their 78 year old victim's lifeless face looking up at them. Some investigators thought that perhaps this was a sign that Lucille's killer knew her and felt some shame or guilt. And I'll tell you what, as I went through some
10:50 Speaker 02 of those details, I started to become infuriated with just the thought that someone could do this to a mother, a grandmother, someone who everyone seemed to love. I had a visceral reaction, Morph.
11:08 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think any crime like this, when you hear the details is terrible. But for some reason, when the victim's elderly or a child that goes through this, it seems especially heinous.
11:21 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think it has something to do with the vulnerability of the, the population, right? Of the person that you're talking about. But me, obviously, this was a horrific murder. And my thoughts also went to Shirley as she entered the home and found her mother in this state. I mean, I can only imagine what that would be like.
11:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, and she could tell from the scene that her mom had already passed away and there was nothing she could do. And, you know, we hear cases where the, the person that finds their loved one is in disbelief or in shock, and they refuse to believe that they're dead. And here it seems like right away Shirley knew that there was nothing that could be done. So she called the police right away.
12:11 Speaker 02 And I think we have to talk about the pillow being placed over Lucille's face. And as I said, investigators are going to think that that may be a sign that Lucille knew her killer. You know, that's where I kind of go as well, because it does turn out that oftentimes, when you see that type of situation, the killer is known to the victim, why else would someone feel as though they needed to do that?
12:44 Speaker 03 And I, to me, I think that even if they didn't know their victim, just seeing that little old lady's face looking back at them, if they had any kind of heart.
12:57 Speaker 03 Which it doesn't sound like they did, but if they had any kind of feelings that might bother them, and I could see why even a stranger might cover their face up after they had done something like that to them.
13:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's a good point. So if it's not a person known to the victim, are we not talking about maybe a heartless serial killer here?
13:19 Speaker 03 As investigators moved around the home, they found the crime scene was confusing. There were items missing, as you would expect in a burglary or a robbery, but there were some important things that had been left behind, which made it seem less likely that whoever killed Lucille had been there for her belongings. Her wallet hadn't been taken, but a few pieces of her jewelry were gone. The ring and necklace she always wore were missing. In the living room, investigators found a pile of Lego pieces and the large square board you attach them to. A few pieces had been placed onto the board next to the pile. The instructional booklets were on the other side of the board. The way the Legos were arranged, it seemed that a child might walk out and shock investigators. In fact,
14:01 Speaker 03 it's exactly what you would have seen if one of Lucille's grandchildren had been there, sitting on the carpet and playing with the Legos. But none of her grandchildren had visited her on February 1st, and she definitely would not have had them still out after an earlier visit. Lucille was a neat freak and a tidy person. As soon as the grandkids were gone, the toys were always put away.
14:21 Speaker 02 So, police wondered, had Lucille's killer been playing with Legos before or after she was killed? And a more frightening thought was, could Lucille's killer have brought a child to the scene during the time she was killed? The Legos left out in the living room weren't the only ones found. There were a few more scattered in the entryway to the home, and some had been left outside in the driveway. Since the Legos just fell out of place at the scene, investigators collected them as evidence, even though they were not directly involved in the murder. They were not bloody, and they weren't capable of causing
15:02 Speaker 02 the damage to Lucille's skull, no matter how you arrange them. But it just felt to investigators like they were an important piece of the puzzle. So they were logged into evidence, along with the other clues, the pillow, the boot print, and the blood spatter.
15:18 Speaker 03 Moving further around the house, there were no signs of forced entry into the home. This led police to wonder if Lucille let her attacker inside and did she know her killer? Was the violent overkill fueled by a personal issue with Lucille? At one point early on in the investigation, investigators believed this was the case and actually suspected her nephew. They inspected his shoes, but none of them were a match to the boot print on Lucille's chest. There was nothing linking him to the crime, other than the theory that Lucille got tired of helping him out financially and he snapped, killing her. What was frightening was the complete lack of suspects. Police could find nobody with a bad word to say about Lucille and no clear suspects with a reason to harm her.
16:01 Speaker 03 News of Lucille's murder shocked her neighbors and as more and more time passed with no arrest, residents wondered if the killer was living in their midst.
16:09 Speaker 02 So more of the Legos are definitely odd. There's no doubt about that. But when you talk about a complete lack of suspects, well, in my mind, aren't you more likely to have that with a 78-year-old woman who, you know, is living on her own? Who would want to kill that type of person? You know, you're not looking at most likely, some of the things that you would be in a much younger person, you know, maybe a love triangle or, you know, something along those lines. Not that it couldn't happen, but you could understand why police would have a lot less
16:53 Speaker 02 in the way of suspects with this type of victim.
16:57 Speaker 03 And that's probably especially true with her age range. If most of her peers are up there in age, it's less likely that one of them would be capable physically of doing something like this. So I think that probably hindered the investigation a little bit and maybe that pointed away from it being somebody that she knew. But then that leads to the question, then, without forced entry, how did they get into the home?
17:24 Speaker 02 Lucille's murder remained unsolved with no good leads for decades. Finally, in August of 2013, the case was looked at with fresh eyes just a little over 22 years after the murder. Police were going to make another run at solving it. Thanks to new, though still limited, funding, authorities sent two items to be tested with new technology. The pillow that had been left on Lucille's face and scrapings from underneath her fingernails. Forensic analysis recovered a DNA sample from those scrapings and a DNA profile was created. Then it was uploaded into the CODIS database.
18:05 Speaker 02 And as luck would have it, the profile matched someone already in the database. That being the profile of a man named John Sansing.
18:15 Speaker 03 When Lucille was killed, John Sansing was 25 years old. So Lucille was obviously no match for him physically. When investigators questioned him, he was 46 and on death row in Arizona's prison system. There was no known connection between Sansing and Lucille, and they didn't even live in the same state. Police were stumped. While they were sure based on the DNA that they had the right man, they couldn't figure out what connection, if any, there was between Lucille and John Sansing. As we mentioned, Lucille kept her doors locked, and there was no sign of forced entry. So how could Sansing, a total stranger to Lucille, get into her home in order to murder her?
18:55 Speaker 02 When investigators questioned Sansing, he wasn't talking. He denied any involvement in Lucille's murder, but he did reveal that during the month of her murder, he was living in Salt Lake City, close to Lucille. Suddenly, it made more sense to police that Lucille and Sansing may have crossed paths. While he didn't admit it outright, Sansing also ended up disclosing exactly how they met. When he lived in Utah, he was working at a car dealership. Investigators put two and two together and realized that John Sansing was the employee who drove her home from the car dealership on February 1, 1991. It's a heartbreaking detail.
19:39 Speaker 02 If she hadn't had car trouble that day, or if she had taken her car to a different mechanic instead of the dealership, or if she had decided to go the next day. I mean, you can run through any number of scenarios. It could mean that this would have never have happened. You know, there's probably a goal weight in your head and getting there on your own is the hard part. Weight loss by Hers offers access to a range of FDA-approved GLP-1 medications, including the Wegovy pill and the Wegovy pen, plus support along the way. With Wegovy, you can lose up to 20% of your body weight. People lost an average of 14% body weight in 64 weeks in a clinical trial of Wegovy
20:23 Speaker 02 alongside diet and exercise. To get started with Wegovy, just go to forhers.com and complete an online consultation with a licensed provider who will determine if a prescription is appropriate. And Hers doesn't stop there. Nutrition and lifestyle guidance are part of the plan, along with access to 24/7 messaging with your care team. So, support is always in reach. Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/criminology to access personalized, affordable care for weight loss, hair, menopause, and more. Individual results may vary and stopping treatment may result in weight regain. Weight loss by Hers is not available in all 50 states. Wegovy is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk AS.
21:06 Speaker 02 To get started and learn more, including important safety information, Wegovy clinical study information, and restrictions, visit forhers.com.
21:15 Speaker 03 Some people have wondered how dealership employees were not questioned, especially one that had been to Lucille's home. A stranger driving her home just before her murder should have been something that was checked out by police immediately after the murder. If that was done, maybe the case would have been solved quickly. But even knowing that John Sansing drove Lucille home that day still left a big piece of the puzzle missing. Because Lucille was last seen alive after she was dropped off at home by him, she was sweeping her porch, perfectly safe and healthy. It's likely safe to assume that when she went back inside after finishing up her sweeping, she locked the doors behind her. So, how exactly did John Sansing get inside?
21:56 Speaker 02 So, 20-something years later, right? They get a hit on this John Sansing. And we've seen things like this before. Obviously, when Lucille was murdered.
22:08 Speaker 02 DNA was in its infancy. I mean, it, it was being used, but not to the degree that it obviously is used today and, and not even to the degree that it was used back in 2013. So, once they got that name though, they still had a lot of work to do. It wasn't like, okay, we know who it is. You know, we, we go arrest this person. But the thing that jumps out to me, Morph, and I want to get your opinion on it, is how it came out that seemingly,
22:45 Speaker 02 there was very little, if any, investigation into the dealership employees. I mean, it had to have been known back then, that she had taken her car to this dealership. It had to have been known that she got a ride home. How could they not have looked in to that angle?
23:06 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think those are well, very fair questions and points to bring up. And some people, you know, have looked at that and wondered. And to be fair, we don't have all the details of everything that police did. But it just seems so logical that when you're retracing her last day, and who was with her, you're building a timeline, you're going to go through step by step. And had they talked to the dealership right away, maybe something in this guy's past would have elevated him as a suspect and maybe this case would have been solved long ago.
23:43 Speaker 02 The Legos found at the crime scene ended up being a huge clue. Police had found a child's fingerprints on them, and the child that had handled them was not one in Lucille's family. It turns out the prints were a perfect match to one of Sansing's son. He was just five years old when Lucille was killed, and his prints being found on the Legos. Doesn't just show that his dad is the one who killed Lucille. It also proves that Sansing's son was actually there inside the home when it happened. This was the key to getting into Lucille's home. Lucille, a caring and nurturing woman, probably would not have turned away a child in need,
24:27 Speaker 02 or perhaps a family in need, especially if she had just been given a ride home by the boy's father. Sansing would later admit that when he gave Lucille a ride home, he talked about his family and actually mentioned that she should meet them. Whether she actually agreed to it or not, it seems they did show up later that night, and they made it inside of her home.
24:51 Speaker 03 It seems that some of the people that do this think of the most devious things in order for their victim to let down their guard. In this case, this guy's using his five-year-old son to make his way into Lucille's home. And then he does this with his son right there. I mean, what kind of monster kills someone in front of their own child? And it's bad enough killing them at all, but with your child there? It just screams to me that this, this guy is a monster.
25:25 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's almost like, you know, when we're going through these episodes, you're talking about levels of monsters, right? These people are all monsters. If you can kill someone in cold blood, you're a monster, short and simple. But then there's, there's almost like there's degrees. Someone who uses their five-year-old son to gain entry and then commits the murder while their son is there, taking the chance that, you know, maybe this little boy witnesses something. I mean, that's, that's a different level.
26:01 Speaker 03 Yeah, it always seems like these guys that do this, and it's guys mostly are weak and they need some kind of way to get the upper hand on their victims, whether it's pretending to be a good Samaritan, helping them with potential car trouble, or it's, hey, look at my little boy. He wants to come over and say hi to you. They always think of ways to get their victims to let down their guard. Sometimes we scratch our heads when a person commits one brutal or heinous murder and then never does it again. In the case of John Sansing, this wasn't the case at all. After he murdered Lucille, he kept up with his life of crime and he had already been on that same path prior to meeting Lucille.
26:43 Speaker 03 It's ultimately why he was already on death row in Arizona, which is why his DNA was in CODIS. Even years before he killed Lucille, he had a criminal record in the Salt Lake City area. He had already pleaded guilty to spousal abuse as well as second and third degree burglary prior to Lucille's murder. According to the Salt Lake Tribune interview with Ann Lampier, a social worker in Salt Lake City, who is also Kara Sansing's adoptive mother, when John Sansing's mother finally gave up on him and shipped him out to his father in 1984, he was already a thief and drug addict even at that time, and she couldn't keep him out of juvenile detention.
27:20 Speaker 02 And more of I think this, you know, kind of goes back to the conversation we were having about, you know, what did police look into at the time the murder occurred? You know, if they would have delved deep into the dealership, they would have found out, right? That John Sansing gave Lucille a ride. If they would have looked at him at all, they would have found out that he already had, you know, quite a lengthy record. He would have jumped up a few notches on police radar. So, you know, by my way of thinking, that probably just didn't happen. But the question is why?
28:04 Speaker 03 Yeah. And in doing that digging, they would have found out that he had a child. And how easy would it have been to check his child's prints against the prints on those Legos? This, again, I go back to, maybe this case could have been solved very early on.
28:19 Speaker 02 After murdering Lucille, you might think that John Sansing would keep a low profile and stay off police radar, but that didn't happen. It didn't seem like he was afraid of being arrested and linked to her death because he continued to commit crimes in the same area. Two years after Lucille was killed, he pleaded guilty to aggravated assault. According to Jack Fort, spokesman for the Utah Department of Corrections, despite all that, he served only 45 days behind bars. Four years after killing Lucille, he moved to Arizona where he continued his life of crime.
28:57 Speaker 03 The murder John Sansing is on death row for is very similar to Lucille's murder. The fact that it took place seven years later and in another state raises the possibility that there are other cold cases out there that John Sansing is responsible for. We'll talk about two of those possible cases shortly. But the murder that he was originally caught for and sent to death row over is the murder of 41-year-old Trudy Calabrese. Just after noon on February 24th, 1998, John Sansing called the Living Springs Church and asked to have a box of food be delivered to his home. He told the church workers that he and his wife had four children to support and that things had been tough because even though they had both recently found employment, they were waiting for their first paychecks.
29:41 Speaker 03 The church offered food boxes to locals and those without a vehicle could give their address and a church volunteer would drop it off at their home.
29:49 Speaker 02 John's wife, Cara, was in reality employee and working at the time, which is hard to believe because she, along with John, had developed a strong crack addiction. Alone with the kids while Cara worked, John smoked crack until Cara would come home. When she got home from work, Cara too would join John smoking crack. It was apparently the fourth day of their latest bender, but Cara was still able to go to work every day to try to get more money for drugs. When she returned home from work, they smoked the last of their recent $750 purchase of crack together while John explained what they were going to do when the church volunteer
30:34 Speaker 02 showed up. They were going to rob the person so that they could buy more crack. There was a big problem with this plan, though. John had given his name and address to the church. And it would obviously be known that the church volunteer was heading to the Sansing home and following a robbery, they would know where to send police. John, not thinking clearly, apparently decided he would kill the church volunteer instead of robbing them and letting them go. But this new plan still didn't make sense because the church would still have the Sansing's home address and name. So more of, I'm sure you remember, most people anywhere close to our age will remember what
31:19 Speaker 02 a big thing crack was back in the day. I don't know if it still is or not. I just, I know I don't hear about it as much. You used to hear about crack all the time. I mean, even Whitney Houston said, crack is whack. I remember that. Now, in 1998, $750 worth of crack seems like it might be a lot. But it also seems to me that smoking that much crack day in and day out, number one, would lead someone to, you know, think about committing crimes to get money for more of
31:58 Speaker 02 the drug, but also, as we kind of just talked about, not maybe think all the way through things, maybe, you know, not be able to because you're so kind of messed up on the drug.
32:14 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think crack was always known as a relatively inexpensive drug that was highly addictive and that's why it was so popular. So I think you hit the nail on the head. $750 worth at one shot seems like a huge amount. But one thing that was common with a lot of crack addicted people was they couldn't be trusted. They would steal from people that they loved, that they knew, and that was one of the common traits among users. So the fact that John Sansing would come up with this, this plan isn't surprising to me, but what is surprising is just how many loopholes were in this plan that he didn't
32:58 Speaker 03 think of because he was probably high at the time and they made sense in his head, but. Just don't make sense to us because we're looking at them with with a clear head.
33:10 Speaker 02 You mean because we're not high on crack?
33:12 Speaker 03 Yeah.
33:13 Speaker 02 But you know what you were saying, it it kind of does go along with the addiction, right? That addiction to some people grabs them so tightly that, you know, at at certain times, they're willing to do just about anything to get their hands on more of that. And and sadly, I mean, it it kind of sounds like that's what's going on here.
33:38 Speaker 03 Trudy Calabresi was that church volunteer who showed up to the Sansing home. She arrived there expecting to be helping a family. Instead, she was about to be ambushed. And Trudy arrived at the Sansing home sometime between four and 5:00 PM. She had two boxes of food with her. She took them right into the Sansing's kitchen and put them on the table. It was required for Trudy to get a signature from the person accepting the delivery. So John signed while Trudy and Cara made small talk. And their four young children, three sons ages 12, 11, and 10, and a nine year old daughter were nearby. Suddenly, John grabbed Trudy and violently shoved her to the ground in the dining room. John and Cara then tied her up with electrical cords while she struggled against them.
34:22 Speaker 03 According to ABC15.com, all of the Sansing children heard Trudy cry out while she was being tied up. Lord, please help me.
34:30 Speaker 02 Seeing the kids standing there, Trudy tried to ask them to call the police for her. According to Cara Sansing's statement in court records, Trudy begged the children for help about three or four times. According to the Sansing's then 10 year old son, John warned Trudy to cooperate, saying, "Make a move, I'll hit you in the head." Trudy defiantly yelled back, shouting out to God, presumably, "I don't want to die. But if this is the way you want me to come home, I'm ready." John shoved a sock into her mouth to gag her and then hit her over the head with
35:09 Speaker 02 a small bat with so much force that it snapped in half and caused a large laceration on her scalp. John eventually told the kids to go into the living room and turn on the TV. Horrified, they listened to their father. This left Trudy alone with Kara and John. The two picked up Trudy, who by this point was unconscious and took her up to their bedroom, where John sexually assaulted her before he stabbed her three times with a knife he had grabbed from the kitchen, cruelly and brutally twisting the knife when it was inside of her.
35:46 Speaker 03 Trudy's kidney, stomach, large intestine, and colon were all perforated by the knife. An autopsy would later prove that these injuries would not have been immediately fatal. It would have taken her at least a few minutes to bleed to death. Despite the medical examiner's later finding that the injuries from two blows to the head with the club were enough to run to her unconscious and never wake back up, Kara Sansing would claim that she heard Trudy and John talking during the assault before the murder. John would also later claim that she regained consciousness. In his version of events, he bludgeoned her and then went to move her truck so that it wasn't parked in front of his house. When he returned, he said she was awake, and this is when he took her into the bedroom.
36:28 Speaker 03 According to court documents, John claimed that after beating her so badly, he decided to kill her to end her suffering, saying, "I just couldn't handle seeing the condition she was in."
36:39 Speaker 02 After assaulting Trudy and stabbing her with a sock still in her mouth, he put two plastic bags over her head and tied them shut with a necktie and more electrical cords. She was also blindfolded, but we don't know at what point during the attack this happened. He also took the jewelry Trudy was wearing before he piled laundry on top of her body. He'd become increasingly paranoid and kept looking out the windows to make sure no one outside had seen him attack Trudy. After a while, he headed to their drug dealer's house. He was able to trade the stolen jewelry, some rings and a necklace,
37:20 Speaker 02 exactly what also was taken from Lucille Johnson for a bit more crap, which he and Kara smoked together. Some more, if we've got to talk about this attack. You know, as horrible as the murder of Lucille Johnson was, the murder of Trudy was equally horrible. And it might even be more shocking because as we talked about, all four of the Sansing children were witness to at least part of this brutal attack.
37:55 Speaker 03 Yeah, I look at the children in this case as victims too. To have to see all this stuff and be part of this. It makes me sad that they had to live in these conditions with those parents and why something wasn't done sooner. Maybe to get these kids out of the house. How come they were never reported for being bad parents? And these kids were taken out of that situation. A few hours after Trudy made the delivery, the pastor from Living Springs Church called the Sansing home looking for Trudy. John answered and lied to him, claiming that Trudy never showed up with the food delivery. He also lied about his address, hoping to throw off the investigation. After hanging up the phone, John moved Trudy's body from the bedroom to the backyard.
38:39 Speaker 03 He shoved Trudy's body into a gap between his shed and the back fence, and then used cardboard boxes, old carpet, and other random items from the yard to obscure the view of her body.
38:50 Speaker 02 And I think all of this morph just shows you you know, the kind of the state of mind that both John and Kara were in. The fact that they would even come up with this plan is unbelievable. And even more unbelievable is the fact that they would carry it out in front of their children. And then, as you just described, you know, it's almost like nonsensical in the way that he tries to hide Trudy's body. I mean, to me, it's obvious that, you know, this pair is not thinking clearly. The drugs have just completely overtaken them.
39:37 Speaker 02 Now, I don't want to blame all of this on the drugs, but obviously they had a huge effect.
39:43 Speaker 03 Yeah, the fact that he disposed of Trudy's body right there in his backyard, just by covering some stuff on it, you know, he could have buried her body. He could have taken it to another location, isn't it? But to just throw it in his yard and throw some stuff on top of it, doesn't seem like a master criminal trying to cover his tracks.
40:03 Speaker 02 Just hours after her murder, Trudy's husband, Rosario Calabresi, filed a missing persons report with the Avondale Police Department. Investigators found Trudy's truck the next day and found something that John Sansing had overlooked when he moved it. There was a handwritten note left behind by Trudy with his full name and more importantly, his real address. Once they were able to search the home, it didn't take officers long to find Trudy's body behind the shed in the Sansing's backyard. She was still bound, gagged and blindfolded with the plastic bags still over her head. Inside the house, a knife was found
40:44 Speaker 02 under a couch cushion and both pieces of the small bat used to strike Trudy were found in a box in the upstairs bedroom. It had been cleaned. Also inside the box was all the laundry that had been piled on top of Trudy for hours.
41:00 Speaker 03 After Trudy's murder and the attempted cover up, John fled to his sister Patty's home, confessing everything to her. Patty was understandably shocked and freaked out by what her brother told her. She called their dad, who called the police and gave them Patty's address. And John Sansing was taken into custody without incident. According to thedeseret.com, John Sansing's nephew Chad came forward and told investigators about overhearing a heated argument where Kara Sansing warned John that she was going to tell police that he murdered a lady in Utah. He said he heard her threaten this on two separate occasions. So it seemed real to him. It's not clear if the Arizona authorities in Trudy's murder looked for any potential victims of John Sansing in Utah.
41:45 Speaker 02 After learning more information from the children and other family members, Kara Sansing was also arrested. According to Sergeant Mike McCullough, the Sansing children were present for Trudy's murder and saw Trudy before, during, and after the attack that ended her life. We now know that the Sansing's oldest child had been present at the scene of two murders committed by his father between the ages of five and 12. And you can't help but wonder more of what exactly he saw and experienced as a child, not once, but twice. And what did that do to him emotionally and mentally?
42:29 Speaker 03 Yeah, we talked a little bit about that and what effect that might have on not just him, but his siblings. So he was definitely present for the first murder and witnessed the second murder. So you have to wonder how his young mind was after those two incidents.
42:49 Speaker 02 Yeah, I can't think of anything that would be more scarring to a child than the scene we just went through. And again, we don't know exactly what he saw when he was around five. He was present at the murder of Lucille, but we don't know how much he saw. All of these kids definitely saw and heard a great deal of what happened to Trudy.
43:18 Speaker 03 Kara Sansing also confessed her knowledge of John's previous murder, that of Lucille Johnson. According to a press release, Kara admitted to UPD detectives that Sansing had admitted to her near the time of the 1991 murder that he killed an elderly lady in Holiday City. And this lines up perfectly with the details of Lucille's murder. They never mentioned Lucille Johnson by name as being that elderly woman. However, according to John Sansing, both of his children, who had been born at the time Lucille was killed, and his wife Kara were in the house when he killed Lucille. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, John claimed they stayed down the hallway in the living room and were nowhere near her when she was being attacked.
44:02 Speaker 02 And so with this information, I think you can see more even more clearly why Lucille probably would have felt pretty at ease in letting these people inside her home. You know, here's a guy who had, you know, given her a ride home. He worked at the dealership and now we know he's bringing not only his five-year-old son, but another child and his wife. I mean, that's just a scenario that I don't think most people would think of as threatening. You have a husband and wife and two small children.
44:46 Speaker 02 And I kind of think along a similar path when it comes to Trudy. I can't imagine that she was thinking anything bad was going to happen to her. She's walking into a home. Now, it might not have been a great home. We talked about how both the parents were on crack. I don't know what the state of this home was, but you have four children inside. Who thinks they're going to be attacked right there when the wife and four children are inside the home?
45:20 Speaker 03 And for me, it just reinforces that these kind of people, especially here in John's case, use their children, their wife, their family as a ploy to get people to let down their guard. And it seems to be part of his MO.
45:39 Speaker 02 In Trudy Calabrese's murder, John Sansing decided to plead guilty, saying he didn't want to put the family through a detailed trial. In court, he apologized to Trudy's husband, saying, "If I had one wish in the world that would be to bring your wife back, all I can do is give myself to the Lord and hope I get to live." On September 18th, 1998, John formally entered his guilty plea. Just over a year later, John was sentenced to death with the judge describing Judy Calabrese as a good Samaritan who took great joy in helping people in need. Multiple appeals and requests for review of his conviction and sentence have been denied
46:24 Speaker 02 because he committed the offense in an especially heinous, cruel, or depraved manner. And as we know, because his entire plan was to lure a church worker to the home to rob them, he also committed the offense as consideration for the receipt or in expectation of the receipt of anything of pecuniary value.
46:50 Speaker 03 I think that's just legal mumbo jumbo for he premeditated this crime.
46:55 Speaker 02 Yeah, and I want to go back to what he said in court. You know, he apologized to Trudy's husband, saying, oh, you know, if I had this one wish, I'd bring your wife back. And maybe he was sincere at that point. Maybe he's, you know, off the drugs. I don't know. I'm sometimes, I think oftentimes, leery, or I have a great deal of skepticism about what some of these murderers say. I don't know that they really believe it, or whether it's just another calculated effort to get what they want, which is, you know, maybe a little leniency.
47:37 Speaker 02 I don't know how sorry John Sansing is.
47:41 Speaker 03 Well, to me, if he was sincere in his apology and realized what he had done with a clear mind after being off the drugs, then he would have never tried to appeal. He would have dealt with his sentence and not appealed it. But obviously, he did appeal it. So, you know, I think to me, I take it as he's not that genuine. Trudy and Lucille were alike in many ways. Both were giving, helpful, and had a history of aiding people in need. And sadly, John Sansing preyed on them and their generosity. But despite the similarities in both Lucille's and Trudy's murders, there's also a big difference between the two murders. As far as has been publicly reported,
48:23 Speaker 03 Lucille Johnson was not sexually assaulted like Trudy Calabresi was. Her death was a lot closer to a robbery gone wrong, where Trudy's was a sadistic thrill kill that also happened to have the benefit of some jewelry he could trade for drugs. According to Kara Sansing, John claimed he sexually assaulted and killed Trudy so that it would look more like a random robbery, rape, and murder. I guess in his mind, while high on drugs, it was supposed to lead investigators away from the food delivery and the Sansing home, even though he made no attempt to move her body off his property.
48:56 Speaker 02 According to the Salt Lake Tribune, John Sansing claims he just panicked. When he killed Lucille, he was there to steal from her while his family distracted her, and she ended up interrupting him in the middle of his burglary attempt. He killed her, quickly stole her jewelry, and the family got out of there in such a hurry that they left behind the Legos. Lucille's children were relieved to find out that it was a stranger who killed her and not someone they knew. Her nephew, who had once been suspected, must have felt vindicated, though knowing who did it didn't erase the pain of losing Lucille or what he went through after her murder.
49:39 Speaker 02 Finding out who murdered Lucille didn't heal her family's wounds. Lucille's daughter Shirley England told ABC News, "I don't think closure is the right word, because you never close something like this. It's been a terrible thing in our life."
49:55 Speaker 03 Unified Police Sergeant Michael A. Kim Ashero, who led the reinvestigation into Lucille Johnson's death, wasn't satisfied with Sansing's death row status. He could have just figured that he wasn't going anywhere and left things alone. But that death row sentence was for Trudy's murder. He wanted justice for Lucille's murder, too. He wanted to see John Sansing punished for what he did to Lucille, telling the Deseret News, "It was very important that we prosecute this case for the family." Oddly, Despite the intention to go after John Sansing in Lucille's murder, there's very little out there as to whether that ever happened. Although one report we found said that John Sansing had been prosecuted in Lucille's case.
50:37 Speaker 02 And I think it could have been easy for them just to say, well, you know, he's, he's on death row. We don't really need to do anything. But I imagine the family as well wanted at least a court or someone to say,
50:58 Speaker 02 you murdered our loved one. And it doesn't surprise me more if that we couldn't find a lot about it. You know, the guy was already on death row. There, there probably wasn't a real, maybe high interest in reporting on it at that point. Sadly, you often find that when you're researching cases. There are two families in two unsolved Utah cold cases who are still waiting for answers. And some online sleuths wonder if John Sansing could be responsible due to the similarities in the victims. It's not clear whether the police ever looked to see if Sansing could be connected. The first case is that of 81 year old Bertha L Hughes.
51:42 Speaker 02 On March 17th, 1982, she was killed in her Salt Lake City home. Multiple articles note that she had been assaulted before she was bludgeoned to death. The second case is of 79 year old Jean Muir of Kearns, Utah, who was killed in her home in 1985. She was stabbed reportedly dozens of times. Some reports say a hundred times and robbed. Her car had also been stolen, but was found parked at a nearby business a few days later. Now, these two cases may not be the work of John Sansing, but if they're not, then that just means that there was
52:22 Speaker 02 another person out there targeting elderly, vulnerable women in that area. If these two women are victims of John Sansing, then that means he was in his teens and early twenties when he murdered them. What we do know is at the very least, John Sansing is right where he belongs. So, you know, he can't hurt anyone else. More if I think as we wrap up this case of Lucille Johnson. John Sansing was a monster. I mean, there is no way around that. Even if he had committed the murders without involving his family at all, he would be a monster. But the way that he committed these murders,
53:08 Speaker 02 seemingly having no thoughts about involving his family, having his young children be, you know, in the home or witness or hear some of the things that he did. I mean, it, it just really blows me away. And you can't leave out Kara in this whole thing. We didn't, we didn't talk about her as much as we did John, but she was definitely involved. And she ended up being convicted and getting a life sentence, which I think is very justified.
53:46 Speaker 03 We know she took part in Trudy's murder. And if John was telling the truth, she was present for Lucille's murder as well. So she deservedly was put away for life. And I wonder what happened again to the kids in that situation, what they witnessed, what they went through. I look at them as victims too. And what happened to them? Their parents went to jail? Were they adopted by family? How did they grow up? Did they have problems as a result of this? That's sort of a ripple effect from, from these kinds of crimes.
54:20 Speaker 02 Yeah. And there's, you know, really probably little to no reporting on them. And I wouldn't blame them for not wanting to be reported on. You know, they went through hell and I'm assuming they don't want to be connected to their mom and dad, knowing what they did. Can't imagine they would want to really give interviews or, or anything like that.
54:46 Speaker 03 The ironic part of, of both Lucille's and Trudy's murders to me is that they seem like the types of people that both would have forgiven John Sansing for what they did, because it seems like they were, you know, very religious and believed in forgiveness. So to me, that's just an, a takeaway on this, on this story. But sadly they're not here to forgive him because he took their lives.
55:15 Speaker 02 Well, at the very least, they seemed both to be very selfless people. Both Lucille and Trudy, they were into helping others. And does it make it even more tragic? That, you know, these were great people who were preyed upon. I think in part because they were so trusting and helpful. I mean, if Trudy's not delivering food to people in need, she's not murdered. And that's just a sad fact.
55:48 Speaker 03 Yeah, and in Lucille's case, had she gone to a different garage or waited till the next day to bring her car on? Who knows, maybe any little thing might have changed the outcome. In her case, she might not have ever crossed paths with, with this monster, John Sansing.
56:06 Speaker 02 But I think you could look at a lot of cases and see where, you know, just one different decision by maybe a victim. You know, if they decide not to go here on that day, if they decide not to do this, not their fault, absolutely. But if they had decided to do something different, then maybe they don't run in to the monster. And that's a scary thought because they're not doing anything wrong. They're making the same types of decisions that we all make every single day. And maybe I want to go to, you know, the grocery store today.
56:51 Speaker 02 Well, is there someone out looking for victims? And that continues to scare me more. We keep talking about it and have been for so many years. The fact that there are just people out there looking, trolling for victims is a very scary thought to me.
57:11 Speaker 03 And very scary that some of them are even willing to use their, their families, their children to commit their crimes and, and get victims to let their guard down.
57:21 Speaker 02 Yeah, and that's what really struck me about this case in regards to John Sansing and, and care as well. I mean, that's maybe even more shocking, right? That a mother would go along with allowing her children.
57:36 Speaker 02 To be inside of the homes when, you know, people are killed. I just don't get it. I don't get it. But that's it for our episode on Lucille Johnson. If you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a rating, leave a review. Also, keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the podcast really helps us out.
58:01 Speaker 03 If you want to find us on social media, we're on X with the handle at CriminologyPod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com/criminologypodcast. And you can join our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans.
58:17 Speaker 02 So that's it for another episode of Criminology. But Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So for Mike.
58:26 Speaker 03 And Morph.
58:26 Speaker 02 We'll talk to you next week.
58:28 Speaker 03 Take care, everyone.
Previous The Gonzales Family Murders Next Harold Henthorn Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated